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This is not a drill

The Independent Institute is a right-wing think tank bullshit mill in Oakland CA that is “libertarian,” meaning it champions the liberty of the rich to enslave the rest.

(I wish these places would have more honest names.)

Here’s a gemfrom these clowns that would be comical if it were not so evil…

The Congressional Budget Office’s recent budget update revealed a dramatic deterioration in the federal government’s finances. The cumulative deficit over the next ten years, through 2025, is now estimated to add up to $8.5 trillion. Just last August, the number was $7 trillion.

Assuming that is true, it means that over the next ten years an extra $1.5 trillion will be added to the U.S. economy. And this is a bad thing?

Actually it is a bad thing, since it means that the average amount added to the economy will be only $150 billion a year. That is a mere tenth of the overall budget for the military, the weapons makers, and the endless wars.

And what’s with this phrase “dramatic deterioration”? In the image below, let these people represent the economy…

The CBO itself notes that “about half of the $1.5 trillion increase stems from the effects of laws enacted since August.” In other words, this is the work of the 114th Congress, in which Republicans hold the majority in both chambers for the first time in the Obama presidency.

Those damned Republicans are slacking off! What happened to “fiscal soundness”? What happened to “insolvency” and “unsustainability”? Where is Austerity Man when you need him?

Republican apologists assert that Congress’ powers to shrink the government are limited as long as President Obama is in office. This is true. So, let’s see where Congress can go from here.

Huh? A Republican majority can’t override a Presidential veto? Besides, Obama has signed off on five years of budgets that had increasing austerity. Only now is austerity mania starting to ease…slightly. (However it still rages in the U.K.)

Austerity means a shrinking federal deficit. However these morons think there is no federal austerity unless there is a catastrophic federal surplus. (“Chunch” should apply for a job with these clowns.)

First, the increase in the deficit is almost entirely due to lower tax revenues, not increased spending. In this respect, the Republican-majority Congress has held the line. The federal government will spend about $48.9 trillion over the next ten years and take in about $40.4 trillion in revenues.

They’re taxes not “revenues.” The U.S. government has no need or use for “revenues.”

However, there is a lot of gimmickry written into the recent tax cuts—revenue will probably be even lower than the CBO’s baseline scenario suggests. (Fortunately, the CBO also estimates alternative scenarios that include these more realistic prospects.) Many of the tax breaks last only one or two years, and as a result, they have little impact on the ten-year period. However, in reality, these tax breaks tend to be repeatedly extended.

Oh no! You mean less money will be sucked out of the economy than anticipated?

So, the question is: Will the Republican-majority Congress follow its tax cuts with spending cuts? Last April, it signaled it would, via a budget resolution passed by both the House and the Senate. Congress had not passed a budget resolution in many years, so this was an important step.

These evil bastards know they are stumping for the rich at the expense of the rest. They know that a scarcity of money in the economy causes mass suffering. They know that more money in the real economy means more jobs in the real economy (as opposed to the financial economy, which is a separate thing).

And when these evil bastards call for spending cuts, they always target things that help average people, like Medicare and Social Security. They are pathetic toadies of the rich.